I join the CTV NewsChannel to talk about Jude Law in “The Order,” the whimsical “Universal Language,” the Irish drama “Bring Them Down,” the Nertflix comedy “Kinda Pregnant” and the horror comedy “Heart Eyes.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to do a high five! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about Jude Law in “The Order,” the whimsical “Universal Language” and the Irish drama “Bring Them Down.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: Based on a real event, “The Order,” a new true-crime drama starring Jude Law and now streaming on Prime Video, gruff Idaho-based FBI agent Terry Husk (Law) identifies crime activity in the Pacific Northwest that could be related to Bob Mathews and The Order, his white supremacist militant group.
CAST: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Alison Oliver, Odessa Young, Marc Maron, Huxley Fisher, Sebastian Pigott, Phillip Forest Lewitski, George Tchortov, Victor Slezak, Philip Granger, Daniel Doheny. Directed by Justin Kurzel.
REVIEW: Set in the early 1980s “The Order” is an unsettling film, made all the more chilling in our time of rising white nationalism and extremist militant groups.
Jude Law is firmly in character actor mode as the disheartened Husk. Still stinging from a broken marriage and stationed in a town where, as the local sheriff says, “the only crime around here is catching trout without a licence,” he’s paunchy and world weary, but while he may be burnt-out, he still has a burning desire to find justice.
He is a standard issue rumpled cop with a past and a depressing present. Even more standard is his sidekick squeaky-clean cop Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan). Both are terrific, but how many times have we seen an older, dishevelled cop paired with a younger go-getter?
Their match up may be conventional, but director Justin Kurzel keeps the action taut enough, and the violence visceral enough, to make up for the more familiar elements.
As Matthews, Nicolas Hoult is the disturbing face of extremism. In his reckless pursuit of a racial revolution, he stages risky robberies, bombs synagogues and kills at will. The robberies are meant to finance his plans for an uprising and his followers, who, like him, don’t think the Aryan Nations are hardcore enough in their beliefs, would follow him into hell.
His motives aren’t political as much as they are ideological, and as such, he is more a cult leader than a soldier but Hoult’s cool demeanour and chiseled good looks give his portrayal of the controlling but charismatic Matthews a terrifying edge.
In many ways “The Order” is a run-of-the-mill police procedural about two men, one good guy, one bad guy, who are willing to do anything for their cause. We’ve seen that before, but the way Kurzel builds tension and shines a light on the dark underbelly of white nationalism elevates the traditional plotting.
“We may be bad,” says Wolf, in “The Bad Guys,” a new DreamWorks animated heist flick now playing in theatres, “but we are so good at it.”
Wolf, voiced by Sam Rockwell, leads a criminal organization of anthropomorphic animals, safecracker Snake (Marc Maron), master of disguise Shark (Craig Robinson), an apex predator of a thousand faces, Piranha (Anthony Ramos), a loose cannon with a short fuse and eight-legged tech wizard Tarantula (Awkwafina), who use their frightening reputations to strike fear into the hearts of their victims.
“Do I wish people didn’t see us as monsters?” asks Wolf. “Sure I do, but these are the cards we were dealt so we might as well play them.”
The gang is riding after a particularly daring bank robbery, but the wind is taken out of their sails when Governor Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz) shames them during a press conference, calling them second rate hacks, driven by anger, not intelligence. “They have all the classic signs of a crew in decline,” she says.
Her televised insults push the Bad Guys to plan the ultimate heist, the theft of The Golden Dolfin, a priceless award given to philanthropists and do-gooders. This year it will be awarded to Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoade), a hamster with a heart of gold.
When their heist goes sideways, the Professor Marmalade, from the goodness of his heart, makes a deal with the Bad Guys and the Governor. He will teach the reprobates to use the skills they developed being bad, to be good.
“Being good,” he says, “just feels so good and when you are good, you are loved.”
Question is, can these bad guys be rehabilitated, or is it time to take the “walking garbage” to the trash and lock them up forever?
Based on the New York Times best-selling graphic novel series by Australian author Aaron Blabey, “The Bad Guys” is kind of like “Ocean’s 11,” but for kids. The emotional undercurrents that Pixar weaves into their movies are missing, replaced with a snappy, stylish story that is more swagger than substance. The movie’s singular message—don’t judge a book by its cover—is a good one for kids, but it is hammered home with the subtly of a Don Rickles one liner. It’s a movie about not accepting stereotypes, that is ripe with stereotypes.
The animation is stylish, but not as sophisticated as we’ve come to expect from big screen offerings like this. Wolf’s fur is rudimentarily rendered and the overall look doesn’t have the zip of Pixar or other computer-generated films.
Having said all that, “The Bad Guys” succeeds through sheer strength of the characters and the humor in Etan Cohen and Hilary Winston’s witty script. There are silly characters kids will get a kick out of, like the flatulent piranha, coupled with jokes parents will appreciate.
Despite its shortcomings, in the end, “The Bad Guys” does good for the audience.
Richard joins Jay Michaels and guest host Deb Hutton of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show The Rush to talk about the morbid history of the Sourtoe Cocktail and some new releases in theatres, the Ryan Reynolds action comedy “Free Guy” and the Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Two years ago, the documentary “Amazing Grace” showcased Aretha Franklin remarkable 1972 two-night stand at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. It’s a soul stirring window into Franklin’s vocal ability as she caresses and stretches the notes of the songs to maximum effect.
A new film, “Respect,” starring Jennifer Hudson and now playing in theatres, broadens the scope, detailing Franklin’s life from her beginnings, singing in her father’s church, to the height of her fame.
We first meet Aretha as a ten-year-old (Sky Dakota Turner) phenom, blessed with a beautiful voice. “You have a talent,” her Baptist minister father Clarence (Forest Whitaker) says, “they call genius.” She’s ten, says a friend, but her voice is going on thirty. Her guiding light is mother Barbara (Audra McDonald), who tells her, “Singing in sacred and you shouldn’t do it because somebody wants you to. What’s important is that you are treated with dignity and respect.”
Despite that advice, her father controls every aspect of her life. Using his connections, Rev. Franklin secures a recording contact with music producer John Hammond (Tate Donovan) at Columbia Records. Four low-selling albums of jazz and blues standards follow as she struggles to find her voice on vinyl.
The climb to the top of the charts came with advice from a legend, Dinah Washington (Mary J. Blige), who told her, “Honey, find the songs that move you. Until you do that, you ain’t going nowhere,” and a new manager (and love interest) in the form of Ted White (Marlon Wayans). Taking the career reigns from Franklin’s father, White breaks ranks with Columbia, and gets a new record deal and a new sound with producer Jerry Wexler (Marc Maron).
As Franklin becomes known as the Queen of Soul, she and White struggle with personal demons that threaten to sidetrack her rise to superstardom.
First and foremost, “Respect” is a tribute to the genius of Aretha Franklin and the talent of Jennifer Hudson. Franklin left an indelible mark on several generation and styles of music, and her life’s work is well represented here, from her roots in the church, to her genre-bending chart toppers and the civil rights activism that defined her life off stage.
Hudson is given ample opportunity to showcase Franklin’s vocal stylings, and does so with a voice that sounds heaven sent. As a rousing jukebox musical “Respect” succeeds spectacularly well.
It’s in the telling of Franklin’s life that the movie hits a few sour notes. There is a lot of ground to cover, from alcoholism and racism to sexism and becoming pregnant at the age of 12, it’s a complicated story told in fits and starts, wedged between musical numbers.
The film’s early scenes, featuring the wonderful Skye Dakota Turner as the ten-year-old “Ree,” are nicely developed and paint a vivid picture of Franklin’s young life. It’s when “Respect” adopts the Wikipedia bullet point approach to quickly cover a lot of ground that the movie loses some of its dramatic thrust.
“Respect” skims the surface of a long, interesting life—the story ends rather abruptly in 1972 with the recording of Franklin’s landmark “Amazing Grace” gospel album—but presents a rousing tribute to Franklin’s lifeblood, the music.
There is music in “Stardust,” the new David Bowie biopic starring Johnny Flynn, in theaters and digital and on-demand platforms. Unfortunately, none of it is David Bowie’s music.
The year is 1971, a year before David Bowie (Flynn) achieved superstardom with “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.” He’s a one hit wonder with little support from his record label and a new record languishing on the charts. “I need you to give me a song I can sell,” says manager Tony Defries (Julian Richings). “If you can’t do that, I need you to give me a person I can sell.”
Sent on a low-budget promo tour of the United State, the singer arrives with a suitcase filled with stage wear—“That’s a man’s dress actually,” he tells a nosy customs official—but no work visa. “With the paperwork you have all you can do is talk,” he’s told by his American contact, Mercury Records publicist Ron Oberman (Marc Maron) as they hop into Oberman’s wood panel station wagon and head off to try and create a buzz for an obscure artist who thinks of himself as filling “the gap between Elvis and Dylan.”
Oberman skirts the rules and finds the odd (emphasis on odd) gig for his client. In one of the film’s desperate attempts to avoid playing Bowie’s music, Oberman arranges a show at a vacuum cleaner sales conference. In front of a disinterested crowd the singer strums “Good Ol’ Jane,” a Velvet Underground sound-a-like song written for the film.
The odd couple stay the course, crisscrossing the country. Between shows, arguments and the occasional press interview Bowie formulates his breakthrough image, the androgynous glam rock star Ziggy Stardust.
“Stardust” isn’t a terrible movie but it also isn’t, as advertised, a David Bowie biopic. The first words we see on screen are “What follows is mostly fiction,” and while I realize that biographies must take liberties, I thought the movie lacked the thing that was at the core of Bowie’s life and work, and that’s originality. “Stardust” is a startlingly conventional movie about a man who was anything but. The film is a generic artist coming-of-age story with dialogue that feels borrowed from other show biz flicks—”I think you’re going to be the biggest star in America,” Oberman gushes at one point.—and music that in no way hints at the revolutionary sounds percolating in Bowie’s head. You wonder why director Gabriel Range, who co-wrote the script with Christopher Bell didn’t fictionalize the story à la “Velvet Goldmine,” and create a whole new world to explore.
With no access to Bowie’s music—the musician’s estate denied Range the rights to the tunes—“Stardust” attempts to recreate the era with covers the real Bowie performed around this time, like “I Wish You Would” by the Yardbirds and Jacques Brel’s “My Death.” This approach has worked before in films like “Backbeat,” the story of the early days of The Beatles and the Jimi Hendrix biopic “Jimi: All Is by My Side,” but here the absence of Bowie songs is deafening.
